Olivier and i decided to try a pbem game of the full Case Blue scenario. We play with full rules, including the dismissal rule. Olivier and myself were part of the beta team and we both enjoyed playing DC1. He did an aar of our french campaign.

This is my first mp game of this scenario and it is also my first time on the soviet side. after reading the briefing and after taking a look at my results of playing Case Blue Short vs AI as axis here are my strategic goals:

1. Trading Lebensraum for troops!

The axis player begins with approximately 700k troops, most of them experienced and well equipped. i have to do with something above 500k, less experienced and with some severe command problems. some of the troops are spread out in the Caucasus, some of them are already doomed after the axis first turn. The idea is to pull back and avoid encirclement at all cost. it will not be possible on all fronts. while pulling back i will move up troops from the Caucasus and i will get reinforcements. the first weeks will be an ongoing emergency management.

2. Time is on my side!

The best thing about the Soviets currently is the higher rate of replacements. While the Germans will get a lousy 300 infantrymen, a tank or two per turn, our rate is significantly higher. Even more important are reinforcements. The Axis will mostly get a few Romanian and other axis minor units, the Soviets get more and regular troops. Those will be needed to deal with gaps and breakthroughs.

3. Airwar

I will regroup my air assets and concentrate my fighter units trying to gain local air superiority.

13 Army pulls back to avoid encirclement. 5th TA storms forward to form a line. Units of the Grossdeutschland division managed to break our line and almost encirlced some of our units. with the help of a nearby tank brigade we established contact with our troops and a counterattack managed to kill some tanks of Grossdeutschlands armored unit. The encirclement is currently reversed, two Grossdeutschland units will have to do without supply. this will slow them a little and maybe i will be able to do a counterattack next turn: low supply will lower their fighting capabilities, resulting in higher losses.

An axis pincer movement is threatening to create a huge Kessel between Obojan-Oskol-Oskol. We move back and reinforce Oskol with the newly available 18th Tank Division. The evacuation is very uncertain as we soon will have to cross a river without bridges, slowing our retreat even more.

The Wikipedia SS division managed to encircle elements of the 339th and the 395th infantry divisions. A Counterattack managed to break the encirclement. Our units moved out of the pocket and caused some SS losses and a reduction of AP's next turn. In Novotcherkask the first troops of the Caucasus army arrive by train.

All in all a bad day for our people. We sustained over 40'000 losses and inflicted below 10'000. South of Voronesh a big encirclement is likely. To avoid further losses we already pulled back the entire front. i played several army level cards to improve the experience of div. HQ and i buyed additional infantry with PP. No commanders are yet changed. I am a little cautious with spending prestige points. If the Axis will not lose speed, i will have to use my prestige soon for not holding cities long enough.

OKH is right now commanding over 716'000 men, STAVKA has 518'000 men. My guess is that the unsupplied Sevastopol garrison and the one minor pocket will add around 25'000 losses in the next two turns. my biggest hope right now are mud turns and the upcoming reinforcements.

Very cool multiplayer scenario, and exciting because you are in ventured, largely unknown multiplayer territory. How will the balance be i wonder?

I can't wait to play someone in multiplayer in a big campaign, but i wonder if I should wait first for more updates to rules ect. Since the scenario could last a long time.

Also I see you have my mod, that makes me excited to see. I was wondering it seems the saturation is much higher than i made it in my mod, did you change it to suit your tastes? Or does it look that way stock?

i didn't change anything, i couldn't even if i wanted. i play on a mac with parallels and the screens were taken with the mac screenshot command. maybe these shots of a different os app get the colours wrong. it looked a little less colourful on the computer.

my current bet would be on the axis. but we will know in a few weeks...

i didn't change anything, i couldn't even if i wanted. i play on a mac with parallels and the screens were taken with the mac screenshot command. maybe these shots of a different os app get the colours wrong. it looked a little less colourful on the computer.

my current bet would be on the axis. but we will know in a few weeks...

but i think the current colours go well with your avatar, don't they?

lol well mac.. explains everything. I noticed the hex outlines are black, i wonder if there was an error for mac's in this? Or how to fix this for mac users.

I personally just am almost done playing the 2nd Kharkov scenario as soviets in pbem. I must say i think the soviets had a big advantage on the small map, the unit numbers are overwhelming. I think you should just try to stay alive until your command percentage is closer to 90%, probably my worst enemy is loosing ap's on turn start. As long as you are not fighting much, it might be good to invest ap's in getting your front-line generals experience up.

The german advance continues but losses dropped considerably this turn. The incoming reports infuriate me, not only do we face the best of the Krauts, we also have to face our home made problems. Command and control level is at 84%, resulting in the loss of half the action points of six armies! One of those armies is now unable to fall behind a river, effectively dooming the bigger part of it's units!

5th TA conducted three not very effective counterattacks. Overall the front east of our major objective Voronezh feels rather stable. It looks like the Axis is directing 11th Panzer and 9th Panzer south into the open plains.

East of Belgorod our troops are fighting a retreat. They are threatened from the south by the 3rd Panzer & 23th Panzer. Next turn if the weather stays good most of our units should be able to cross the river and reach relative safety.

Our units north of Artemovsk couldn't cross the river due to AP penalties. Between Artemovsk and Voroshilovgrad a big gap was left open. At least the next railroad is only reachable for the Huns if they cross two rivers. I have to bring reinforcements up here. Only problem is that there are none available.

German's 4th Inf Div breaks into our railnet. Again 353rd Inf Div is almost immobile due to AP penalties. Reinforcements are on their way to Voroshilovgrad, units from the Caucasus arrive in Rostow just in time. We are not unhappy to see Wiking and Slovak Mob turn north. It's hilly there, not the best Panzer country.

Our navy broke the supply barrier around Sevastopol and sunk several axis subs and boats. We decided too hasty to evacuate Sevastopol. We should have waited one more turn to protect the transports with ai capable Destroyers, we can only hope that the axis somehow doesn't bomb our transports.

This evacuation is really badly executed. But it's the first time i do it. I hope i learn a lesson here.

Somebody asked about naval units. Here is a screen of a submarine unit. Most units consist of ships of different size. The biggest one is a battleship, nearing Sevastopol. After this turn i guess one third of the axis navy has hit the ground.

yes they are extremely low, even more so for the germans. your aar showed exactly how to react: fight as few battles as possible, build as many pockets as possible. against the ai this is even more important as the ai gets a combat bonus. if i can avoid too many pockets without falling back too fast (will get me sacked) i should slowly get on par with the fascist scum.

German breaktrhoughs have been numerous and deep. Some of my units losing AP penalties are now gone. Casualties went up. Stavka is nervous and not sure how much longer our lines can sustain such severe losses. Compared to wargames against ai our losses are considerably higher, even though no huge pockets have so far been created by the german attack.

Moscow sent us slightly more reinforcements. So far they are going up each turn. we hope this is not by coincidence. there is a desperate need for more troops in all sectors.

Even though 5th TA suffers organizational problems, we faced a situation where we could do a three sided attack in open terrain on three german inf regiments with plenty of tanks and full AP. But the penalty was too high and our attack was in vain and hurt our offensive power.

9th Pz from the north and 23rd Pz / 29 mot Inf Div from the south almost closed a huge pocket. A counter attack successfully pushed back a regiment of 9th Panzer, a counterattack on a regiment of the 29th mot Inf failed. all units in the pocket move further east. with all the german armour in place we fully expect a closed pocket within the next two days. around 20-30 regiments would be doomed and the german panzers will have almost nothing facing them anymore. this is the worst part of my front. two newly arrived inf div help forming a weak new line.

This front faces almost no armored units. things are a little more quiet here. the main problem is to find the right time to fall back once the pocket in the north is closed. against the ai i managed to trap lots of soviets units here.